100% Recycled 100th Post

For my 100th post I have been trying to find something extra special. The other night I had the mother of all headaches and decided that supper would be from a can, beef chow mien to be precise. As I was washing out the cans for recycling I was noticeing how shiney and clean they were and since my can opener removes the lid with out rough edges I was popping it on and off as I was waiting for supper to heat up. The light bulb went on (advil must have kicked in) and I thought it would be cute to make coasters that would fit in the can! So the next day I pulled out some recycled supplies: the fabric was a skirt in its former life, the cotton towel was a rescue from the thrift store, the paper on top of the can was the inside of a junk-mail envelope and of coarse the can! that beautiful CAN :)

Seed Sack (part 1)

Okay, I bought these hideous linen pants at the thrift store last year, NOT because I wanted to wear them but because of the cute embroidered seed packets on them. I was cleaning out my sewing cupboard the other day and decided to make something. It all looks well in the picture, but it ended up to small to hold actual seed packets, my machine was not threaded right and I had bad stitches and I found out that burlap is not so fun to sew. I will be trying this again with different fabric.

Ready for Winter

I actually took pictures of this scarf to do a tutorial but I'm too lazy to upload all those photos and add directions, so Its just the finished product. I LOVE this quilted scarf, I made it last month and we have had a few days that were cold enough to enjoy it. I bought my first jellyroll of fabric to make this and only used half. The inspiration for the scarf was this coat I found at a yard sale this summer. Yup! I'm ready for winter

Did Someone Say Chicken?

Before the little green swine, I was dabbling with this chicken. I could not find a good pattern that I liked so I ventured into the scarry land of MAKE YOUR OWN. This is the result. It has some serious beek issures and lets just say that I had to rip and re-sew its chest 4 times to get it where I wanted it to be. The wings are actually pockets that are suppost to hold eggs or chicks but I have not gotten that far and I may never because around that time I found the pig and got sidetracked. I have Attention Defecit Hyper-sewing Dissorder.

Pig Softie

With all the talk of Swine flu, I thought it would be good to get cozy with a safer variety. This is a pattern which was origanally made from felted wool on MarthaStewart.com but I had different ideas, I re-eally wanted him to have spots along with his flowers but I could not get friendly with the french knot and I was too lazy to google "french knots for dummies" . I think I may have to make another one because my son grabbed up on him to put in his locker at school?!?... well thats what he said, but I have been around long enough to know that 16 yr old guys don't just keep cute things in there lockers unless they plan on giving it to someone?? hmmm

UpCycle Wool Mittens Tutorial

With what is left of the sweater from the Wool Hat Tutorial I made matching mittens. I found the Pattern Here and enlarged it 330%. The pattern fits a womens large but could be adjusted to fit other sizes depending on how much you enlarge. I found the directions on the website with the pattern to be very helpful but there were two flaws in the pattern/directions. 1. one side of the thumb is bigger than the other and is very apparent when you match up your cut pieces so I just trimmed the larger one the same size as the smaller. 2. they also call for 4-1/2 inch pieces of elastic, I used 4 inch and liked the fit better.

Cut pieces out of felted sweater, making sure you have a right hand and a left hand. (ask me how I know this is important? you could end up with 2 gloves that fit one hand! not fun) I used pins and paper to identify each peice so this would not happen again. I also took advantage of the ribbing on this particular sweater and made sure that my cuff pieces butted up against it.

Cut 4 piece of elastic 4 inches long and zig zag stitch it to the wrist of the gloves. You will need to stretch it gently as you sew.

Stitch the top thumb/palm piece to the bottom thumb/palm piece

Stitch down the small palm seam.

1. Use a scrap piece of fabric 2-1/2 inch X 1-1/2 inch and fold in long edges 1/4 of the way then in half, it will look like quilt binding or bias tape. 2. Stitch around edges and fold in half. 3. Tack in place on finished side of glove at the elastic line, this will give the option of clipping the gloves together and also adds a touch of flare. 4. Stitch front and back together starting at the cuff and stopping at the thumb. Cut thread and start stitching on the other side of thumb finishing with the opposite side of the cuff. (not sure if that makes sense but that was the best way I could describe it)

There it is a nice cozy glove. You may notice that I added a lining to them in the very first photo, this was just for extra comfort, you make the exact thing from a soft stretchy fabric ( I use a cotten shirt) and insert into the glove stitching together at cuff.

UpCycle Wool Hat Tutorial

Cut the hood off of a felted wool hooded sweater. I found this one at the thrift store for .99 cents and felted it in my washer/dryer.

trim the cut side to match the uncut side like above

stitch together

Stitch each side of your seam down, this will give a nice finished look on the outside of the hat as well as making it less lumpy on the inside.

Use a piece of scrap fabric roughly 2 -1/2 inch by 1-1/2 inch and fold sides in 1/4 of the way, them fold in half (just like quilt binding or bias tape). Stitch around edges. Fold ends in 1/8 inch and stitch to hat, this leaves an opening so you can hang your hat on a hook as well as giving it a little flair.

and there you have it! One very cheap AND warm wooly winter hat.